Hume Howe

'What if?' thought experiments are a great way of thinking about what your utopia might look like. A utopia is the embodiment of an imagined society that reflects your ethics and values. My utopia currently looks like a place that is driven by doughnut economics, where resources are allocated to balance the improvement of society against ecology for a number of key metrics. It is a place where people have the security, comfort, and resources to be empathetically creative.

My design ethics and values are aimed at facilitating this. In order for people to be able to pursue their creative passions most efficiently, it helps to have a standardised set of building blocks on which people can add to and improve the work of others. I support open structures where possible, modular and standardised components, regenerative by design principles, and right to repair. I want to design socially impactful products, which are human centred and improve key metrics.

A better society can be built by investing in preventing harm and promoting health: preventing harm because the human and economic costs are lower, prevention is better than cure, and promoting health because it improves our physical, mental, and environmental wellbeing. As designers, we need to understand the challenges, possible solutions, and relevant policy, then treat them holistically and design good considered solutions. With limited resources, we should design with optimisation in mind. I want to design the most impactful solutions in the most optimised way.